Martian Tracery

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

About this image

Deep in the southern highlands, the work of innumerable dust devils produces a cobweb-like pattern of tracks across the Martian surface. The spinning atmospheric vortices commonly called dust devils are like mini tornadoes that vacuum up the dust from the surface to expose darker material in their wake. Dust devil tracks are among the most recent features on Mars and are continually forming.